Misadventures in Children's Educational Television
by meganechan720
Summary: Art student Steve Rogers gets a job as the host of a patriotically-themed children's television show. His stage name? Captain America. Well, it's better than flipping burgers, at least. AU
1. Chapter 1

"This face was made for television," he jokes when people ask how he'd gotten the job, but really it had just started out as doing a favor for a friend of a friend who was willing to give him an advance before he'd even shot a scene. When he turns out to be horribly stiff in front of a camera he feels a little guilty, but the posters they'd printed already have his face on them, and there's no one else willing to do favors for a guy who'd flipped out and destroyed the rec room in his fraternity—literally destroyed, as in thrown the pool table and the mini fridge out the second-story window and then set fire to the curtains. Steve doesn't ask Bruce about it, and Bruce, who is teeth-meltingly gentle with the kids they manage scrounge up to appear on the show, almost never talks except to give him directions or ask if he can stay an extra hour.

It's not a bad way to pay for college, especially because they film exclusively in the afternoons and on weekends and all of Steve's classes are early in the morning. Bucky jokes in his emails that he should have been the one to join the army, he'd find the 5am wake up call a refreshing morning spent sleeping in, but Steve has asthma and heart palpitations he has to take three different medications for, and they'd rejected him all three times he'd tried to enlist. Bucky, who'd gone with him to the recruiter for "moral support" (in reality to keep him from lying to the recruiter), had been intrigued by the offer of free education and a pension after only twenty years, and had joined up himself. Steve still hasn't forgiven him.

He plays "Captain America", which, as he'd said out loud upon first hearing it from the friend of a friend, is the stupidest name he's ever heard of for a children's television show, but it sort of works anyway. It meshes seamlessly with the show's earnest but awkward attempts to teach kids about American history while also instilling good moral values like sticking up for those weaker than you and being honest. Bruce, who is a bio-chemical engineering graduate student by day, explains to Steve during his interview (lunch at the cafeteria) that he feels very strongly about educating children but feels more comfortable interacting with them at a remove. Steve thinks of the rumors, but only says that he doesn't have any experience with children whatsoever, to which Bruce replies with a dismissive wave of his hand, as though experience with children were of trifling concern to the producer of a children's television show.

His first scene is a speech about the Revolutionary War, which he flubs on the first take by exclaiming in the middle of a sentence, "Really? I didn't know that."

"You didn't know the Revolutionary War started in 1775?" Bruce, who is operating the camera, asks incredulously.

Steve shrugs.

"I thought it started in 1776," he says lamely, though in truth he doesn't think he's being _that_ thick. 1776 is the year everyone talks about, it's the year they mark as the beginning of the country, so logically...

Bruce sighs and shakes his head, and they start the scene over.

His costume is awful, and he takes the first opportunity to ask Bruce if he can make some alterations, to which Bruce replies with a distracted grunt, which Steve takes as a yes. It is maybe disingenuous to ask him when he's in the middle of an editing jag, which he measures in bags of pita chips rather than hours, but Steve _really_ hates that costume.

His first move is to replace the weird head-thingie with a metal helmet he finds at a junk shop and paints blue, and then adds an 'A' in white on the forehead to be conciliatory even though he thinks it looks just as stupid on the helmet as it had on the mask/hat thing. Next he tries unpicking the boyshorts that are somehow attached to the tights he wears them over, but he ends up ripping both of them and quietly replaces them with blue cargo pants and a much more substantial belt. You almost never see him full-body anyway.

The boots and gloves can stay, but that shield is just an atrocity. What is he, a knight? But the shield is some sort of symbolic part of the character, at least according to Bruce, so he tries to find a replacement and in the end he recruits Natasha over in theater to help him make a round one out of foamcore and metallic paint. It looks pretty good. She critiques his shaping on the foamcore, but overall he can tell she thinks he cuts a dashing figure, and he poses and makes her promise to watch the show when it finally airs (_if_ it finally airs, he adds under his breath).

"Only if you come help paint sets," she demands. He shakes his head in mock despair.

"You drive a hard bargain."

"You love it."

"You know I do."

He winks, and jogs back across campus in the costume, feeling almost a little cool.

Bruce hates it.

Of course he does, Steve thinks to himself as Bruce huffs and puffs and rants and raves. He isn't even sure Bruce remembers authorizing changes in the first place.

"But it just looked so... homemade," he argues. Bruce gestures sharply at him.

"And this doesn't?!"

"Hey, I'll have you know, I did this paint job myself."

"You look like a... like a _soldier_!" Bruce exclaims, and Steve finds himself losing his own temper a little bit.

"Who are the ones fighting and dying to _make_ all this history you find so important. I may not know dates very well, but I know for damn sure what kind of person is worth teaching kids to look up to, and it ain't the politicians."

Bruce glares at him, but Steve thinks about his Vietnam veteran father who had drunk himself to death and feels his own ire rising, and he thinks if Bruce says one more word he's liable to punch him.

Bruce takes a couple of deep breaths and lowers his shoulders. When he speaks, it is in a tightly controlled voice.

"I don't want kids thinking violence is in any way okay. It's not a good way to solve problems. You wear a shield for a reason."

Steve hates the way Bruce talks about Captain America and himself as though they are the same person, but he can see that Bruce has a personal stake in this anti-violence stance, and he pushes his own temper down to answer calmly back.

"I kept the shield because I agree with you about that. Violence is bad, and it's not what I'd teach to kids either. But if you're going to teach them history you're going to be talking about wars, and we were the good guys in a lot of those wars. Why not address that directly?"

"Because the moral complexities of the necessity of war is a bit of an advanced topic for young children."

"And war itself isn't? Bruce, for crying out loud, you have me running my lines for a segment on the cotton gin's impact on slavery, you think that's not a complicated topic?"

Bruce whooshes out a sigh and runs his fingers through his hair, turning away from Steve slightly. It's just them in the studio, which is Bruce's girlfriend's parents' basement, and Steve feels sillier and sillier standing there arguing with such anger in a costume that makes him look like someone had taken a soldier and dip-dyed him in an American flag.

"Fine," Bruce says eventually, "you can keep the costume. But I'm not doing an episode on the moral implications of war, or on anything. This show is strictly about facts."

"Sure," Steve says, trying very hard not to be sarcastic, because he does understand that Bruce is being really nice to him about messing up his costume, which had cost him a hundred dollars in materials and bribe money for his cousin, who he later admits isn't very good at sewing.

Anyway, he gets used to speaking in front of a camera fairly quickly, but it takes him _ages_ to stop feeling like an unwieldy monster around children who only come up to his knees. The first time they have kids on the set he panics and hangs out upstairs in the kitchen with Betty, glad that so far none of them interact with him onscreen. She teases him gently, and then manages to coax him downstairs "just to watch," though by he end of shooting he's somehow ended up play-sword-fighting with her neighbor's daughter and _enjoying_ it, so he's pretty sure Betty is made of magic. She has to be, to be dating Bruce. (The rec room story is entirely true, but it was also somewhat provoked, though Betty doesn't say exactly how. Steve doesn't ask.)

Betty isn't there most of the time, though, and Bruce finds it hilarious that children apparently _terrify_ Steve. He, having not known this about himself before now, tries to shrug off Bruce's amusement at his expense, but one day after the kids have all gone home he corners Bruce.

"What if I'd dropped her?" he demands, shouting. He'd only been lifting her up by her armpits to place the American flag in a sconce on the wall, but still. Bruce stifles a laugh, and Steve's glare deepens. "I'm serious, Bruce. What if one of them gets hurt?"

All the laughter leaves Bruce's face in an instant.

"You would never intentionally hurt a child," he assures him. Steve blinks, amazed that this is even in question.

"Of course not," he says.

"No," Bruce agrees slowly, as though he hadn't meant to say what he'd said. "Of course not."

Steve decides he was being silly and backs away from that land mine as quickly as possible.

Sometimes they shoot on location, and that's pretty fun. A lot of landmarks he talks "in front of" are just green screened in behind him, but a couple of times they day-trip to Boston or Philadelphia and film segments live. He and Bruce get used to each other.

He finally meets Tony.

Tony is the rich friend Bruce had told him bankrolled the whole project with his fun money, since his dad was hardly likely to sign over actual company funds to a college film project. He is also the only person Bruce actually refers to as a friend, which makes him unique if nothing else. What Steve hadn't known was that Tony is a _baby_.

He refrains from asking how old Tony is, but the kid can apparently see the question in his eyes and offers his hand like it's the opening thrust in a sword fight.

"Hey, Tony Stark, yes I'm fifteen, you must be Cap."

"Steve," Steve says, taking Tony's hand and shaking it. "Nice to meet you."

"Pleasure. You know, you look less pretty in real life."

Steve cannot believe he's being postured at by a fifteen-year-old who looks like he's about twelve. He stifles an indulgent smile and just says,

"That's the photoshop."

"Not that you aren't pretty," Tony hastily adds, backing away from tough guy so fast Steve is afraid he might trip. "Just... not in a... I mean, you _are_ pretty—not that you—"

"Tony, Steve's like ten years older than you," Bruce informs him from across the room where he's four and half bags of chips into editing the War of 1812 episode, and Tony _blushes_. Ah. Steve... actually isn't sure what to do about that. They both stand in awkward silence not quite looking at each other until Tony wanders over to Bruce and asks what he's doing and Steve sits down to finish his sketching assignment. They don't speak to each other for the rest of the afternoon.

Natasha laughs.

"Poor boy," she says, painting in the leaves where Steve has outlined them. He shakes his head, still laughing ruefully.

"What do I _do_?" he pleads. "He keeps sneaking glances at me and staring at my arms."

"You do have nice arms," she assures him, painting one of them with a long, green stripe. He gives her a matching one down her bicep, which is impressive in its own way. She frowns and brandishes the paintbrush like a weapon. He holds his hands up in surrender.

"Just not the clothes," he asks, "I like this shirt."

"Then why did you wear it painting?" She carefully draws a flower at the end of his green stripe and goes back to painting.

"I'm not Jackson Pollack," he protests. "I can paint without getting it all over myself."

"Just ignore it," Natasha advises, frowning delicately at a particularly tiny leaf. "Don't treat him any differently, and he'll get used to you."

"But he's fifteen. It's not like I can take him out drinking."

"You don't go drinking," she points out. He waves the paintbrush impatiently.

"You know what I mean."

"My advice still stands," she says, and then changes the subject. "When is the show coming out?"

"Next month. We have a five am slot on Saturday, which is pretty good for public access, or so I'm told."

"You are enjoying this," Natasha says with a little surprise, looking at him. "You said you hated everything about it, but you're invested now."

"Well," Steve says defensively, "It _is_ my job."

Natasha smiles secretly and goes back to painting.

Betty's father revokes permission to use his basement when he comes back from Afghanistan, and that's how Steve finds out that Bruce is forbidden from even seeing Betty, much less dating her. He stands awkwardly in front of the camera, which is still rolling, as Bruce stands there and takes the verbal abuse Captain Ross heaps on him, having come back to the states to find his basement overrun by, apparently, the way he's practically breathing fire, his worst enemy.

Steve is getting ready to deck the guy even though he knows that won't do a lick of good (Bruce looks like he's about to cry or flip over a table, Steve's not sure which, and he hates bullies past the point of reason) when Betty comes home and starts shouting at her father. The man can barely stand to argue back at first, though he seems to be picking up steam as Steve takes Bruce by the shoulders and steers him out of the basement and down the upper-class suburban street Betty lives on to a nearby playground, where Bruce, cursing and crying, punches a tire swing for a full ten minutes before collapsing into a hunched-over seated position on the bark chips and holds his head in his hands. Steve just sits near him, shoulders touching, offering moral support minus empty condolences or attempts at wisdom. Bruce never says anything, just sits there until the sun goes down and then lets Steve escort him home.

They find their equipment on the lawn when they go back the next day. Bruce stares at it in dismay (neither of them have cars), and Steve starts calling people, trying to see if anyone can lend them a few hours of drive time in exchange for money or favors. Natasha's roommate (who owns a moped) answers the phone and won't put her on no matter how Steve pleads with him, but he promises to come and lend muscle if they'll give him pizza. Steve had foolishly given him the address in the hopes that he would pass it along, and he hangs up feeling frustrated.

"Tony's ordering us a truck," Bruce says quietly, lowering his phone from his ear. Steve makes a face, and Bruce makes one back.

"He can afford it," Bruce says, shrugging. Steve sighs and accepts it, and together they wait on the front lawn until the truck arrives.

The driver's name tag says THOR, and he flashes them a blindingly white smile before picking up two large pieces of mixing equipment, one in each hand, and carries them easily to the truck. If Steve had to guess he'd say Thor is easily six foot nine, with biceps the size of grapefruits and long hair tied back neatly in a braid that somehow doesn't look girly. The guy could probably wear a tutu and make it look masculine, though, and Bruce seems as nonplussed as Steve feels.

"Where did Tony find this guy?" he whispers to him when Thor is in the truck setting down lighting equipment.

"I have no idea," Bruce whispers back. "I think he and I need to have a talk."

Steve silently agrees.

They hitch a ride with Thor back to the storage unit his truck is contracted to take the equipment to, which is how they learn Tony also rented them a storage unit. Steve catches sight of Clint's purple moped coming up to the house in the rear view mirror as they round the corner, but he doesn't draw attention to it. He'd made it clear Clint didn't need to come, and if he decided to anyway, that's his problem.

It isn't that he dislikes Clint, per se. He can be really fun, and he's pretty good at holding poses for drawing and has an interesting and expressive face, so as an artist Steve feels obligated to like him for his body at least. But he can be... obnoxious. And he's a bit of a slob. And he sleeps with anything that stays still for five minutes, which, to Steve's knowledge (which is right from the source, so probably accurate), has never included Natasha. He honestly isn't sure that Clint and Natasha are friends so much as she keeps him as a pet for her amusement. He still tries to sleep with her— mostly on principle, Steve is sure, since he actually puts notches in his bedpost like a total cretin. But it's mostly half-hearted flirting at this point.

Anyway, Steve doesn't feel all that guilty leaving him behind, but he does decide to buy Clint a pizza anyway, if only to keep him well-oiled for asking drawing favors from.

The storage unit is big enough they could probably use _it_ as a studio, which is Tony's intention, or so he informs Bruce in a text assuring him that such a use of this space is totally legal, he checked and everything.

"Bruce, I have to ask," Steve says, hauling equipment from the truck along with Thor, "How did you and Tony...?"

"Become friends?" Bruce supplies. He takes his glasses off and begins polishing them on his shirt. "I don't really know, honestly. He just sort of latched on to me when I was at MIT, something about geniuses having to stick together. But he's a good kid. He just doesn't have good male role models in his life."

If Steve had to guess he'd say that's probably the understatement of the year, but he doesn't want to know and doesn't say any more. Thor is curious about the equipment he's moving, and Bruce gets going on a digression-filled friendly rant about film-making and education and patriotism, which Steve would totally rescue Thor from except he actually seems interested. He's apparently not native to America (though he doesn't say where he is from) and doesn't know that much about American history, but is excited to learn more. He promises to watch the show when it airs, and drives away an hour later humming the Star Spangled Banner.

Bruce just about has an aneurysm when he discovers that the metal walls of the storage unit give him so much echo that the entire day's film is completely unusable. Steve gently suggests they build a makeshift sound booth, which they have space for, and dub over the video, which calms him considerably. But the problem of sound still plagues him, until Natasha mentions to Steve that the local gymnastics studio where she works is replacing all the foam in their cheese pit and is just giving the old stuff away. Tony is happy to pay for another day of Thor, especially since it's on a weekend and he can come.

It's a bit of a relief to be around Tony and not be the object of his badly-hidden attraction, but Steve feels bad for Thor, who surely notices being stared at. If he does, he gives no indication. Bruce puts Tony to work moving foam, which is light, but they need a lot of it. They end up taking most of the pit, and Natasha finally gets a chance to meet Bruce and Tony, which pleases Steve. He wants her to see for herself just how little exaggeration he uses when he talks about the two of them. She shakes her head slowly when she catches sight of Tony tracking Thor's movements inappropriately closely as the giant man pretends to struggle to lift a particularly large piece of foam, eventually raising it above his head with great pretended effort. Everyone claps, and he tosses it in the truck and takes a bow.

Thor even stays with them to help tape foam up on the walls, just shrugging when Tony offers to pay him for his time.

"I don't have another appointment until the afternoon," he says. Steve wonders out loud how a moving truck company can be so free on a weekend, and Thor explains that he actually just started and doesn't have much of a client base yet.

"You guys are my first repeat customers," he says, smiling broadly. "I might win this bet with my dad yet."

While taping up foam he tells them the saga of his first major fight with his CEO dad, which had resulted in him getting kicked out of the house and all communication cut off. Before slamming the door in his face his father had shouted that he could come home when he'd proven himself worthy to inherit, and Thor, who had never thought about a business being something you could be unworthy of, had sold most of his belongings and bought the moving truck, determined to prove he could run a business without his father's help.

"Loki still talks to me, at least," he says, only a little mournfully. "He says father's health has been failing ever since I left, but he does like to exaggerate. It might just be his way of making me feel better."

They celebrate putting the foam up by having Bruce film them being silly, and when he plays back the video it sounds much better, though it's a little hard to hear when all of them are laughing at themselves and making fun of each other. Thor leaves for his next appointment, accepting payment from Tony with a firm handshake and a nod to the rest of them, and Natasha says she has to get back to the studio and gives Steve a peck on the cheek before she leaves, making Tony scowl, which is doubtless why she did it.


	2. Chapter 2

The show airs, and it gets a surprising amount of viewers. They have a P. O. box that slowly starts getting fanmail, and the first time someone asks about Captain America's favorite food, Bruce chuckles and moves to put it in the 'read' pile. Steve stops him.

"No, wait, that's a good point. Wouldn't it be more compelling if you actually knew something about Captain America as a person? Right now he's just a fancy narrator, but he's got a whole costume and a personality. Why not roll with it?"

Bruce stares at him, expression halfway between dismissive and intrigued.

"What do you suggest?" he asks slowly, clearly turning the idea over in his mind. Steve hefts the letter.

"We could start here. Apple pie, do you think?"

Bruce laughs, and they film a question and answer segment where Captain America's favorite food is officially stated to be apple pie. Steve ad libs it, since Bruce didn't give him any lines, and mentions his mother baking it for him as a boy. Bruce cocks his head warily, but leaves it in.

Soon more and more people want to know about Captain America. Bruce grumbles that what people should want to know more about is history, but Steve suggests using the Q&A as an opportunity to teach a more personal side of history, and soon the Captain has a whole backstory, which is a little fantastical, but they realized too late that they wrote themselves into a corner and had to fix it _somehow_.

"But the human body doesn't work like that!" Bruce exclaims. "You can't just freeze someone in ice and then thaw him out later!" Steve shakes his head.

"That doesn't matter. Captain America isn't real; you even have him say that every damn episode. Who cares if he's a little larger than life?"

"This is supposed to be a show designed to educate, not mislead."

"Think of it as mythology. Weren't you thinking about doing an segment on Paul Bunyan and John Henry?"

Bruce scowls, but relents, and Captain America is officially a man out of time. In the end, Steve is almost kind of glad they had him growing up in the depression _and_ losing an apartment in 9-11.

Their wall of fanart is getting overfull, and more and more of it is drawn by kids much older than their target audience. Some of it is drawn by adults.

Tony makes them hire a third person.

"You can't keep doing this by yourself, Bruce," he scolds. "You're going to burn out."

Steve agrees. He literally doesn't understand how Bruce can be producing an entire television show by himself and still be keeping up with his doctorate. He certainly doesn't sleep, but that doesn't even begin to explain it. Bruce argues halfheartedly, but eventually relents, and the search for an assistant editor/camera operator begins.

The show may be popular among their small cult following, but they aren't exactly swimming in applicants. The only people who apply are Clint (Steve gives him a pizza and tells him to shove off) and some political science major who is looking to get extra credit.

"You're hired," Bruce tells her tiredly when she says she knows how to use Windows Movie Maker and films all the home movies for her large and extremely close family. She fist pumps, hissing, "Yess." Steve just hopes this isn't the death of them.

Darcy actually turns out to be a pretty quick study: when Bruce teaches her a technique on the editing software, he only has to show her once, and they often catch her reading thick tomes with titles like "Techniques of Film Editing," and "The Five C's of Cinematography." Bruce stops looking like he wants to murder people all the time and starts showering regularly again, which is a relief to all parties.

Finals hit and Steve tentatively asks for a few days off to study; Bruce, knee-deep in papers to grade and his own dissertation to write, gives him the whole week off. Darcy sends them both emails of motivational cat pictures on days they have tests and Steve makes it through with his art scholarship intact.

Bruce breaks up with Betty.

Steve finds this out by coming in to work the morning after finals to find the studio in shambles. His first, stomach-dropping thought is that they've been robbed, but most of their equipment is clearly still there, just cracked or dented or in more than one piece. Then he sees Bruce sitting with his head bowed in the center of the destruction, his clothes torn and his glasses missing. Steve still doesn't get it, and he crouches down beside Bruce thinking he's been attacked.

"Are you okay?" he asks, hovering, not quite daring to touch him. If Bruce needs help he will give it, but they aren't the kind of friends who are physically affectionate, and this is a barrier he hasn't broken yet. But Bruce just lifts his head slightly and limply raises his fists, which are still clenched and bloody and raw. Steve wonders if that's really bone he can see peeking out through his knuckles. He surveys the destruction again, and sees the deliberate and precise method in the debris strewn about the room, and, occasionally, streaks of blood that he guesses belong to Bruce. He looks back at his face and sees a blankness there that scares him. But Steve is no stranger to rage himself, and he sets his face determinedly and hauls Bruce to his feet.

"Come on, soldier," he says, something his mother used to say to him when things were horrible and she was trying to be cheerful, "Let's get you some breakfast."

Bruce docilely follows him to the Denny's around the corner, where he orders black coffee and, with prompting, pancakes. Steve has already eaten, but he orders a fruit cup and some sausage that he's hoping he'll be able to persuade Bruce to steal. Halfway through eating Bruce starts to shake, and he puts his head in his hands and tells Steve what happened.

"I realized her father was right. She deserves better than me. I could never forgive myself if I lost it and she got in the way. I don't... I'm not _there_ when I... when I lose it like that. I can barely remember what I did later. She deserves someone who isn't a danger to himself and others. And now I've ruined the show, too."

Steve rolls one of his sausages back and forth on his plate, thinking. After a minute he says softly, "I don't know about Betty. I think she can make her own decisions about who she dates. But I do know that as for the show? We can rebuild."

Bruce raises his head above his hands to give him a frankly incredulous look. Steve sets down his fork and leans forward, determined.

"We can," he says, certain at least that they have to attempt it. "All the files were backed up, right?"

"...Yeah," Bruce acknowledges reluctantly.

"Then we still have five or so episodes basically ready to air. We can take a season break if we have to. We can do this, Bruce."

Bruce stares out the window, but he doesn't have the blank despair of a few minutes ago. He turns back, sighing.

"I don't know, Steve. I think I need to just go home and sleep."

"Good idea," Steve tells him, because he's going to need some time to wrangle Tony and Darcy to help clean up and assess the damage, and he'd rather Bruce steer clear of the mess he made for now. He waits with him at the bus stop and then jogs back to the storage unit and makes some phone calls.

Tony drills Steve for information when he gets there and freaks out when he sees the blood, but eventually he gets a determined look on his face and goes back to the limo to have a conversation with his butler about trust funds. Darcy cracks wise about anger management classes, but piles broken equipment in the corner and sweeps up debris unbegrudgingly. Steve sorts through everything and decides what's beyond repair and what can be salvaged, and by the time Tony comes back they have the place looking a lot better.

"We can do this, guys," he says, "but you're going to have to take pay cuts."

"I'm in this for my resume," Darcy says dismissively. "Don't worry about me."

"That's fine," Steve says, "but don't tell Bruce."

Tony nods, and then looks down at his feet, worrying his lower lip.

"What," Steve demands. Tony shuffles in place, and then gathers his courage and looks up again.

"I called Betty," he says. "She says Bruce finally told her about his dad."

Steve knows absolutely nothing about Bruce's father, but it doesn't take much imagination to get why telling Betty about him had driven him to this.

"What about his dad?" Darcy asks, looking between the two of them expectantly. Tony and Steve share a look, and Steve leads Darcy gently back to sweeping the floor while Tony picks up a computer case and starts taking it apart to see if he can fix it.

They rebuild. Tony buys new equipment and fixes the rest. Steve negotiates for no pay for a full two months and makes Tony swear not to tell Bruce, not even to let it slip accidentally, I mean it, Tony. He feels a little guilty standing there at his full height, arms crossed impressively across his chest, Tony wide-eyed in his shadow, but Bruce is so fragile right now and Tony can't keep his mouth shut about anything. By the time school starts they are filming again, Darcy working overtime to give Bruce a break. She claims not to mind the extra workload, but Steve knows she's just as overwhelmed as him with classes and work and not enough money to smooth things along. He eats ramen and hotdogs almost exclusively, and she eats peanut butter jelly sandwiches as she hunches tiredly in front of the monitor, cursing transitions and visual effects. Natasha treats Steve to dinner at IHOP on an almost weekly basis "to keep in touch while you're so busy," she says, but he knows it's her way of pitching in and he's grateful for it. Pancakes and sausages and scrambled eggs are heavenly after a breakfast of cold ramen and half a hot dog.

After about a month Bruce returns to working full time, looking exhausted and hungover despite being a teetotaler, but he smiles at Steve on the first day, and only stands in the middle of the room staring at all the new or repaired equipment for a minute before getting down to work.


	3. Chapter 3

For the Civil War episode (actually a three parter) Steve calls on Sam, a childhood friend who, in his spare time between classes at a neighboring university and ROTC, is a reenactor, and is happy to let them film the Battle of Gettysburg, as well as a few civilian life scenes starring the Captain. Captain America has become a temporary time traveler for this one, which makes Bruce grit his teeth, but Clint is happy to stand in for the mad scientist from the future intent on changing history so that everyone's textbooks will become inaccurate and he can corner the market. Bruce gives Darcy an almost horrified look when she suggests giving the episode a _plot_, especially such an illogical one, but she raises an eyebrow and argues that _he_ doesn't know how time travel works, maybe her theory is the more accurate one. This causes Bruce to start to explain string theory with a quiet intensity that makes Darcy laugh, tweak his nose, and tell him to lighten up. Bruce spends the rest of the day sulking, but in the end he agrees that it makes for an interesting hook.

"Not that you should _need_ a hook," he mutters. "History is interesting for its own sake."

"Dude, why didn't you just major in history?" Darcy asks him impatiently. He stares at her.

"History isn't a _job_, it's a passion," he says, as though it's obvious. Darcy spreads her arms wide to encompass the entire studio, including Steve, who is busy sewing the mad scientist's costume and smiling gently to himself.

"This is your job," she says, and they stare at each other like the other one has completely lost it.

"Should the shoulder pads be black felt or purple satin?" Steve asks, and they break away from their mutual death glares to argue with him about which fabric would best convey evil.

Clint finds a little too much glee in his mustache twirling, and Steve has a hard time not laughing through their takes together. He frowns deeply when Clint flirts with Darcy, but Darcy just laughs and gives him horrible pick up lines right back as though they are trading jokes, and eventually he gives up and just has a normal conversation with her, which seems to be a novelty for him.

Hawkeye the Horrible is in instant hit with the viewership, who demand to see more of him. Bruce flatly refuses to turn his historical education show into a time travel show, but Darcy continues to point out that _technically_ Captain America is a time traveler already, so he might as well. Bruce continues to studiously ignore her every time she does. Steve is pretty sure he'll give in eventually, especially once it's clear that the episode is popular enough to get them national attention. Articles start running in newspapers that aren't even based in their town, and the number of contraband YouTube videos of their show are enough to prompt Darcy to start up their own channel and begin posting episodes. They reach 10,000 subscribers by the end of the week.

"We should start selling t-shirts," Darcy muses out loud as they lounge on the studio couch after sending off the latest episode to the television station. Their post-send off ritual (vegging out on the couch with pizza and soda) is now extremely well attended. Nat is there today, and Tony makes it every time. Lately he's been bringing around a girl he claims to be dating, and Steve is verbally skeptical behind his back until Bruce looks at him oddly and tells him Tony is bisexual. Even Clint shows up most of the time, having become something of a groupie. They usually get him to hold booms or adjust lighting equipment when he's there, so at least he earns his keep, sort of. Mostly he proves his worth by bringing food, none of it healthy.

"That's a good idea," Steve says. Bruce groans from under the magazine perched over his face.

"This is not a commercial enterprise," he protests, but they can all tell it's one of his token protests in defense of the purity of children's education, and they all ignore it.

"I'll do some research," Tony says, whipping out his smart phone and typing away. "Pep, what do you think?"

Pepper (Steve isn't sure if that's her real name or just what Tony calls her) started her own business at age nine, and sold it for $100,000 when she was thirteen to start another one, which she is thinking about selling again now that it's bringing in almost a million a year. She and Tony had apparently met at boarding school. Steve thinks being rich must be like living on another planet.

"Definitely," she says, also tapping at her smart phone. "Someone's already made up shirts with a picture of the shield on them, and they're selling for twenty bucks a pop."

"They can't do that!" Steve exclaims, sitting up from his post-pizza doze. Natasha gives him an amused look, which he ignores. "Who's doing that?"

"A fan, it looks like," Pepper says without looking up from her phone. "You should email them and ask them to stop."

"On it," Darcy says, pulling out her laptop. "What's the URL?"

"We're not selling t-shirts," Bruce protests again. Tony rolls his eyes.

"Why not? Wouldn't it be cool if you guys were self-sustaining?"

"I'll buy one," Clint says, flinging rubber bands at various targets. Steve has noticed that he almost always hits what he's aiming at.

"I'll buy one if it's American Apparel," Nat says, picking up a stray Cheeto from the couch next to her and flicking it away.

"You should make sure they come in kid sizes," Pepper reminds them.

"I will not be party to this," Bruce announces, and gets up and goes over to the sound booth, where he shuts himself in.

"We'll make sure to get a green one for him," Tony says.

The t-shirts make a decent profit, though definitely not enough for them to stop needing Tony's help. Steve starts getting a paycheck again and he celebrates by donating a large chunk of it to the USO. Bucky thanks him sarcastically for the free toothbrushes in the latest airport USO office he flew through, though Steve can tell he really means to scold him for wasting his money. He points Bucky to the YouTube channel, and Bucky sends him a link to a website full of gifsets and fanart of Captain America, most of it quite flattering, some of it downright pornographic. He blushes and vows never to let anyone he knows see it.

Steve recommends Thor's moving company to a guy on his floor who's getting married and just got an apartment with his fiance. He's surprised when Thor calls him up to thank him, and he almost hangs up before he remembers the Paul Bunyan episode.

"Hey, Thor!" he blurts. "Wanna be on the show?"

He can hear the grin in Thor's voice when he accepts.

Clint finds some guy named Luke to be John Henry, and when he shows up at the studio trailing menacingly behind Clint, Steve can tell he's bad news.

"Hey, guys, this is Power Man," Clint says, and Luke turns and scowls at him.

"What did you just call me?"

"It's his rapper name," Clint stage-whispers to them, and "Power Man" looks like he's about to pop a blood vessel.

"What's my rapper name?" another guys asks, popping up behind Luke and Clint. He's tall and skinny and blond, and extremely well-dressed, but Luke, a guy with an honest-to-goodness _chain_ holding his pants up, softens his expression when he turns to him.

"You're the Iron Fist!" Clint declares, pumping his own in the air.

"Why?" the man asks curiously.

"Because... you know kung fu?" Clint says tentatively. Luke shakes his head.

"Danny would make a terrible rapper."

"So would you," Danny teases, and Luke cracks a smile.

Steve's pretty sure he's never actually met someone taller than Thor in real life, but Luke has a solid, angry presence to him that makes him seem almost as big. In their costumes, they look like the legends come to life, and Steve, who is playing a new myth among old ones, can't help but feel a little intimidated.

"Hey, fellas," Captain America says, pulling out a chair from a table where sit two large men, one in plaid and a knitted cap, the other in denim and suspenders. "I'm new around here, and I was wondering if you could show me the ropes."

Paul Bunyan waves him into the chair with a wide, friendly smile. John Henry is suspicious but polite. On the other side of the table from Captain America, in plain view of the camera, are a large axe and an even bigger hammer leaning innocuously against the table.

"Certainly, friend!" he booms. "What's your tale?"

"I'm just a small time legend, nothing like you fellas. I help teach my friends here about our history." The Captain gestures to the camera, and Darcy makes a face at Steve, who keeps his own steady as best he can. "Say, you're Paul Bunyan, aren't you? And you're John Henry."

"S'right," John Henry says, folding his arms over his chest. "And your name is?"

"I'm Captain America."

"Welcome, Captain," booms Paul Bunyan, slapping him on the back, "welcome! It's good to have you with us."

"I was hoping you could tell my friends a little bit about yourselves. Why don't you start, Paul?"

Thor launches expressively into the tale of Paul Bunyan, and they cut after a few lines. He'll dub the rest over an animated sequence Steve's been hard at work on. They start up again with John Henry's turn, and Luke does admirably, just the right blend of hardened railroad worker and proud national hero. He gets an animated sequence too, and Steve, who wants to be a portrait artist, not an animator, hopes he never has to use Flash again. At least Darcy is helping him.

The spot ends with Paul Bunyan and John Henry getting into an argument about who's the bigger legend, and Captain America breaking them up and reminding them of the value of cooperation, a founding principle of the country they all love. Thor and Luke (who have been sizing each other up all day) get a little too into it, and Steve has to physically pull at them a little harder than they practiced to remind them they're just actors on a set and not two American legends ready to wrestle up a new mountain range.

Paul Bunyan and John Henry vow to work together and be friends, and as they shake hands the camera zooms in until the entire shot is their multicolored clasped hands, framed by Captain America's shield. Steve can feel the pride radiating throughout the studio as Darcy calls cut, and they all turn to each other and grin a little wider than they normally do. It's a feeling Steve has experienced many times throughout his stint on the show. There's something about standing in front of a camera wearing the colors of the flag trying really hard to _mean_ lines like "America is great because the people who founded it wanted everyone to work together" that makes him stand up a little straighter and try to be a little better even after the camera stops rolling, and he can see the same feeling today in everyone's eyes. Thor and Luke compliment each other awkwardly, and Danny comes and punches Luke on the shoulder affectionately. Bruce looks contemplative, but in a good way.

"What'd you think?" Steve asks quietly, coming to stand next to him. Bruce smiles a little.

"I think we're doing a good thing here, Steve," he says, and all Steve can do is nod.


End file.
